‘But what can I do?’ I asked pathetically.
Megs thought for a moment, taking another glug of prosecco. ‘You know what I’d do? I’d talk to Bianca.’
‘What? But I’d basically be accusing her of boffing my husband behind my back. That would go down like a bucket of cold sick, right?’
‘Wait, just hear me out. If – and I know it’s a big if – you can manage to stay calm and reasonable, tell her you saw some messages on Myles’s phone that freaked you out, and ask her, as your friend, to tell you the truth about what’s going on, what do you reckon she’d do?’
‘Honestly, I have no idea. I guess it depends on whether it’s true or not.’
‘Exactly!’ Megs said triumphantly. ‘If it’s not true, she’ll be like, “Oh my God, Sloane, I can’t believe you were freaking out when we were just talking about the surprise birthday gift we got you,” and she’ll show you the messages, and then all you have to do is make things right with Myles, after you’ve given him a massive bollocking for being so manipulative.’
‘And if it is true?’
‘If it’s true, I bet you a fiver she’ll fess up. Seriously, I’ve read a lot of the agony-aunt columns in trashy magazines over the past few months – I know, right, but my attention span is totally shot and I don’t have head space for anything else – and loads of them are women sleeping with married men basically begging the agony aunt for permission to come clean to the wife. They all want to. Either it’s because they feel guilty, or it’s because they want the whole thing to blow up in the hope the bloke will land in their lap.’
She tipped the bottle over her glass, but it was empty. I was about to signal to the waitress but noticed her coming over with a fresh bottle in an ice bucket – not prosecco this time, but proper decent champagne.
‘Sorry to bother you, ladies, but the gentleman over there in the corner said to offer you this, if you’d like it.’
And she handed me a business card – a fancy number on see-through acetate, with the name Edward Reeves printed on it in frosted letters and the logo of a company called Clear Future.
Astonished, Megs and I looked over to the corner of the room, where a group of late-twenties men were drinking cocktails. All of them were wearing sharp suits, except one who was in jeans and a T-shirt. He was tall and dark-haired, with a chiselled jawline any male model would be proud of – and he caught my eye and raised his glass.
Megan and I both started to laugh.
‘I tell you what, Sloane,’ my friend said, ‘no matter what happens with Myles, at least you know you’ve still got it.’
We didn’t talk much more about Myles after that. I wasn’t sure how to respond to the generous gift of the champagne – it was so long since either Megan or I had been in the dating game that neither of us had a clue. I thought with a pang of nostalgia how the old, single me would have got up, gone marching right over there and thanked Edward Reeves in person, joining him and his friends for a drink.
Although, of course, it was a total no-brainer where it would have gone from there. Right back to his flat, or mine, for a night of slightly drunken sex that would have left me feeling either wildly elated at the prospect that he might call me the next day and turn out to be The One, or sunk in depths of despair and self-disgust, wondering how I’d turned into someone who’d put out in exchange for a bottle of Taittinger.
That wasn’t going to happen tonight, obviously. So I found a notepad in my bag (after trying and failing to write on the slippery surface of Edward’s business card), and scribbled a few words: Thank you for the generous gesture! I’m just catching up with my friend, but I hope you have a great night. And I signed it with my first name and asked our waitress to deliver it.
Then we ordered poké bowls and edamame and kimchi and seaweed salad and pickles and debated splitting a miso brownie for dessert before deciding to hell with it – we’d have one each.
While we ate, Megs told me – in between telling me how wonderful it was to be talking about something other than mastitis and shitty nappies – how adorable Ethan was and what a relief it was to finally be getting some sleep for the first time in two months. I told her how things were going at the agency, and how shocked I’d been to meet Vivienne, and she said yes, she’d suspected that her client wasn’t in a good place, and we chatted about the best way to deal with that. I told her that I was determined to do everything I could to help Vivienne find work and get back on her feet again, although I didn’t yet know whether I’d be successful. But I didn’t tell her about the horrible, dark memories Vivienne had brought back for me, about my own childhood and about Mom.
And soon we’d finished the bottle and all the food, and Megs looked regretfully at the time and said she really needed to get an Uber home or her tits would start leaking everywhere, and I said I was ready to call it a night, too.
As we paid our bill, I glanced over to the corner where Edward Reeves and his crew had been hanging out, but they’d gone – presumably moved on to more fertile pulling pastures. Once more, I felt that pang of nostalgia – but this time it was tainted with a hint of terror.
I’d played the dating game, and played it well. At the time, I reckoned I’d got every dating app nailed and known whether to swipe right or left within seconds of seeing a profile. I’d done the analogue thing, too, mastering the art of striking up conversations with strangers in gyms and bars and on the subway. I’d forced myself to assume a veneer of confidence and, having faked it, I’d found myself eventually making it.
But now, the idea of returning to that world filled me with hollow dread. I wasn’t twenty-something any more. I had a mortgage and a business and lines round my eyes that definitely hadn’t been there when I met Myles. I had a wedding ring on my finger. I’d thought that once you had those things, it was game over – and the game was one you’d won.
Now, the glaring naïvety of that assumption was staring me right in the face.
‘Sloane, my love, call me, okay?’ Megs said, tumbling tipsily into her Uber. ‘We’ll have coffee, or do this again. It’s been amazing. I feel human for the first time in ages. I’m sorry if my advice was crap. I feel so bad for you. I love you.’
And I told her I loved her, too, and asked her to give Ethan a big smooch from his not-so-fairy godmother, and told her to text me when she was home safe.
I waited for my own cab, my head spinning, all sorts of ways of interpreting Megan’s advice jostling in my thoughts like dodgem cars at a fairground. Maybe, I figured, once I’d had some sleep, it would all become clear.
And, amazingly, the hungover morning provided not clarity but a determined resolve to take matters into my own hands.
Sixteen
What does a girl wear, I pondered bitterly, to confront the woman she suspects of having an affair with her husband?
It was Saturday, and I’d tried to ring Bianca several times, but my calls had gone unanswered, my messages ignored. Myles was incommunicado, too, which made me mostly furious, but also a bit anxious. He was thousands of miles away in a foreign country where anything could happen. A pile-up on a motorway in a rental car, an arrest for breaking some law he didn’t know about, a mugging in the street. I tried to tell myself not to worry, but it was no good – the niggling fear wouldn’t die down; it just crystallised into anger.
With Myles returning home the next day, I needed to take control. I needed to make some decisions – or, if I couldn’t do that, to at least have a clear plan of action, a set of if-then scenarios in my head that would hopefully help me to make them in future.
And so, since Bianca was blanking me, I was going to go and find her.
I’d put my hair up in a twist on the back on my head, secured with a clip. I’d done my make-up, focusing on a strong red lip but not putting on any mascara, in case I cried. In my wardrobe, I found a black shift dress I’d bought in a charity shop a few years back – it was older than me, but it was Chanel, I knew, even though the labels had been cut o
ut by a previous owner. I slipped it on and did up the zip, contorting myself to get it all the way up, remembering how I always used to get Myles to do it for me.
Would I ever walk up to him again, casually turn my back and feel one of his hands on my waist as the other pulled the zipper tab to the top, his warm kiss on the nape of my neck? Would I ever hear him say, ‘Turn around and let me look at you’ and see the desire in his eyes?
Had he ever zipped up the back of Bianca’s fucking dresses? That at least was unlikely, I told myself – Bianca favoured unstructured cocoon-like garments in natural fibres and earth, oatmeal and sludge tones.
Bianca. If I was going to do this thing, I needed to do it now, before my courage deserted me. I stepped into a pair of taupe heels, perched a pair of outsize Jackie O-style shades on my head and left the house, picking up my car keys on the way.
Fifty minutes later, I found a space and parked my car. This was one of those parts of south-east London where, from the endless terraces of drab suburbia, sudden little enclaves of wealth and prestige emerged. There were leafy streets lined with grand detached houses, many designed to look like half-timbered cottages or Gothic mansions. There was a sign pointing to a golf and country club. The chichi high street where I’d parked boasted an organic juice bar, a women’s boutique, a hipster barber shop, a place selling hand-painted wooden toys for children and a French restaurant.
And, of course, Casa Bianca. The shop window was crowded with broderie anglaise bedding, twiggy things in tall vases, rag dolls in Victorian-style dresses and bits of upcycled furniture that seemed to serve no purpose except to hold the various knick-knacks that jostled for space on every surface.
Bianca’s home might have recently been upgraded to industrial-style minimalism, but clearly her interiors emporium hadn’t got the memo.
I pushed open the door and a bell pinged. Two voices said in unison: ‘Good morning, how may we help you today?’
Neither of them was Bianca’s. Behind the little table that served as a counter were a teenage girl, hastily screwing the cap back onto a bottle of nail enamel, and Charis.
‘Oh, hello, Sloane,’ Charis said. ‘We’ve got some French porcelain, just in. Would you like to see it?’
If things between Bianca and me escalated into a proper bitch fight, the French porcelain would be the first casualty, I thought.
‘Actually, I’m here to see your mummy,’ I said. ‘Has she popped out?’
‘Bianca’s not working today,’ the girl said. ‘Have you tried calling her?’
It was absolutely typical, I thought, that Bianca would leave her – presumably underpaid – Saturday helper to mind not only her shop but also her daughter.
‘I haven’t been able to get hold of her,’ I said. ‘Is she at home, do you know?’
The girl shook her head indifferently. ‘No idea, sorry. I guess not, otherwise…’ And she glanced down at Charis, with a hint of entirely justifiable resentment.
‘Mummy said I should ask you about promoting my YouTube channel,’ Charis said. ‘She said you can get me free stuff to do unboxings of, and find me celebrities to interview. Is that right? She says I’ve got a real presence in front of the camera.’
‘I’m sure she’s right,’ I said. ‘But let’s have a chat about it another time.’
I’d dealt with some nightmare clients in my time, but it was hard to imagine one who’d be more demanding than Bianca’s daughter. She’d make Ruby-Grace – stripper heels, designer dog and all – look like Influencer Management for Dummies.
‘Mummy said you don’t know that Myles has been playing away,’ Charis went on. ‘Why not? And what game’s he playing? Are you going to go and watch?’
The girl’s eyes widened and her jaw literally dropped.
I forced out what was meant to be a casual laugh, but came out more like a strangled croak. ‘I think you mean working away. Working, not playing. He’s in Qatar this week, in a town in the middle of the desert. So I thought I’d swing by and see if Bianca was free for lunch. But I guess she’s not.’
‘Nah,’ the girl said, unscrewing her nail varnish again.
‘Can you do nail art, Shawna?’ Charis asked. ‘Can you do my nails? I want them ombre blue, with gold tips.’
I hovered for a second, considering asking Shawna if she could try calling Bianca from her own mobile, thinking up some pretext to get her back here, and then ambushing her. But I was nowhere near ready to embrace that level of humiliation, and I’d clearly outstayed my welcome. Not that I’d had a welcome in the first place.
‘Right, I’ll head off then. Don’t bother telling Bianca I came round; I’m sure we’ll catch up soon.’
The girl didn’t look up from her nails as I left, the bell pinging again as the door closed behind me.
Back in the safe haven of my car, I realised I was shaking all over. My teeth were chattering so hard I had to clench my jaw to stop them, and the ache I felt deep down in muscles I’d barely known were there made me realise I must have been clenching them a lot. My hands on the steering wheel were trembling and slick with sweat.
I was in no state to drive, but I didn’t care. Like some frightened animal – a cat, maybe, racing across a busy road in panic – I was desperate to get home. I put my Mini into gear and reversed jerkily out of the parking space, turning back onto the A road towards home, grateful that I had the satnav to guide me, because I was certain I wouldn’t have made it on my own.
But I did make it, more or less safely, apart from a narrow miss with a cyclist that earned me a mouthful of deserved abuse. My usual space outside our house had been occupied for several months by the builders’ skip, and the one around the corner that I’d been using was taken too, by a powder-blue soft-top Mazda with a vanity plate that could, if you squinted a bit and substituted Is for ones and Bs for eights, read BIANCA.
Fuck. Surely I must have been imagining it?
I got out of my car, my legs so unsteady I could barely balance in my high heels, and walked around the corner. Bianca was standing on our doorstep, tapping in exasperation at her phone. As I approached, I heard my own phone begin trilling in my handbag.
Bianca heard it too. She turned around, the look of annoyance on her face segueing into relief.
‘Sloane! There you are! I’m so sorry I haven’t returned your calls. Everything’s been frantic, and to be quite honest with you I’ve had nothing to report. But the wallpaper samples arrived just this morning, so I rushed straight round to share them with you, and we can make some proper decisions at last!’
She brandished a document carrier at me in a way that I guessed was meant to be inviting.
‘Bianca, what the…?’
‘I’ve updated all your mood boards. I didn’t even go into the boutique this morning, I was so excited to get all this ready to show you! Shall we go inside?’
‘Yes. I think we’d better.’
I unlocked the door and she followed me in, still gushing on about foil embossing and the resurgence of flock. Like I gave even a fraction of a shit about wallpaper at that point.
‘Any chance of a glass of water, Sloane? It’s baking out there, isn’t it? And I did ninety minutes of hot yoga this morning – I think I’m still dehydrated.’
I thought, I think you know where the tap is. Feel free to use it. But I said, ‘Of course, give me a second.’
And I went upstairs, grabbed the only two pint glasses we had that weren’t packed in boxes, filled them from the bathroom tap and carried them downstairs.
I handed one to Bianca. My determination to remain calm and diplomatic forgotten, I said, ‘What’s going on with Myles? I need you to tell me right now. I’ve had enough of the bullshit. You know what’s going on, he knows, even your daughter knows. So come on. Out with it.’
Bianca flinched like I’d threatened to slap her. ‘What do you mean?’
‘You know what I mean. Seriously, Bianca. Are you sleeping with my husband?’
The glass
slipped out of her hand and fell to the ground. If the polished concrete floor had been laid, it would have shattered into a million pieces for sure. But as it was, it bounced off the bare boards, showering both of our feet with water that felt shockingly cold in the heat of the day.
‘Oh, God, I’m so sorry. Here, let me…’
‘I’ve got it. It’s fine.’
We both squatted down, reaching out together for the glass. Our hands bumped together and I recoiled as if she’d given me an electric shock, leaving her to pick up the glass. I grabbed the roll of blue paper towel the builders had left and chucked some of it onto the spilled water.
‘There. Now, explain what’s going on.’
‘Sloane, I genuinely have no idea what you’re talking about.’ But her eyes were wide and anxious, and didn’t quite meet mine. She clutched her folder to her chest like a shield, looking like a tiny, red-headed Brienne of Tarth.
‘I think you do, Bianca. I went to your shop earlier, because I thought you’d be there. Charis said you said Myles is playing away. What’s going on? If you’re sleeping together, you owe it to me to be honest about it.’
‘I really think you should be discussing this with Myles.’ Bianca sipped her water, her eyes darting from one corner of the room to the next, like she was looking for an escape route.
Well, I wasn’t giving her one. ‘Do you think I haven’t discussed it with him? For Christ’s sake. Are you stupid or just acting like it? Of course I’ve fucking discussed it with him. And he’s denied it. He says he just sought your caring advice as a friend, about our marriage, and I presume you gave it – as a friend. Possibly in a horizontal position.’
‘There’s no need to take that tone of voice with me,’ Bianca said.
‘Oh, right. What tone of voice, exactly, am I supposed to take with someone who’s meant to be my friend, who’s been lying to me and going behind my back with my husband?’
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